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Tim Sullivan | NCAA lightning protocols for games explained

By Tim Sullivan
2:08 a.m. EDT June 2, 2014

University of Louisville and University of Kentucky fans piled into Jim Patterson Stadium for the NCAA regional championship game only to be asked to leave when severe weather including lightning strikes threatened the area.
01June 2014

Lightning can strike the same place twice, but its impact is not always identical. Not, at least, in Louisville.

A precautionary evacuation of Jim Patterson Stadium between games of Sunday's NCAA baseball regional coincided with a minor-league game being played without interruption four miles away at Louisville Slugger Field.

Different places, different procedures. Same problem.

According to the National Weather Service, lightning has been responsible for just four fatalities in the United States in 2014 — two in Florida, one in Texas and one in New Mexico — but the potential danger it poses for large outdoor gatherings is plain.

Ten years ago, a study at the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology policy research asserted that "Large outdoor stadiums face a significant and growing vulnerability to lightning due to increased size and frequency of events," and that that growth was "not paralleled in the knowledge and management of spectator safety."

It instructs event staff to monitor MxVision WeatherSentry online and observe a 30-mile "alert ring" and an eight-mile "warning ring" for lightning.

Once lightning enters the warning ring, competition must be stopped and athletes and spectators moved to safe areas. No further activity is permitted until 30 minutes have passed since the last lightning strike inside the warning ring.

This policy resulted in a 3-hour, 55-minute delay between the scheduled start of the Louisville-Kentucky game and the first pitch, and a cheeky tweet from the Louisville Bats that carried a photograph of a game in progress and the text: "@UofLBaseball @UKBaseball Hey guys.

Baseball."

Since weather maps showed the lightning strikes were to the south and west of Patterson Stadium, the Bats enjoyed a geographic advantage of greater distance from the "warning ring." But that won't always be the case in inclement weather. The Bats may want to study the NCAA protocols as a possible template for the future.

"In my time here, there hasn't been an instance where lightning was an issue," Bats spokesman Chadwick Fischer texted in response to a question about the team's lightning protocols. "Obviously, we would take the appropriate measures if it ever was an issue."

Fischer speculated that the use of aluminum bats in college baseball and the prevalence of metal bleachers may have been contributing factors in the NCAA's caution. He said the Bats make a practice of evacuating the metal bleachers and patio deck when lightning is detected before a game, but that once the game starts, the responsibility shifts to the umpires.

Is that sufficient? The authors of the Colorado study — Joel Gratz, Ryan Church and Erik Noble — expressed concern that event managers at large stadiums might be making "inadequate assumptions" about their ability to protect their facilities and whether evacuation was a reasonable response to the threat of a lightning strike.

"Converse to these assumptions, measures to protect a facility and its occupants are rather inexpensive compared with the cost of large construction projects. ..." they wrote. "Furthermore, without a well-planned lightning evacuation procedure, the uncontrolled movement/panic of a crowd attempting to seek shelter has the potential to harm many more people than the few that could experience a direct harm from a lightning strike."

Sunday's evacuation of Jim Patterson Stadium did no discernible harm except to the mood of impatient spectators and the deadlines of cranky reporters. At the same time, it was a considerable boon nearby bars and restaurants.

The storm passed. If you wait long enough, it usually does.

Contact Tim Sullivan at tsullivan@courier-journal.com or (502) 582-4650. Follow @timsullivan714 on Twitter and keep up with discussions using #cjsullivan.